Art and design programmes are educationally unique in that students themselves play a central role in determining their own learning needs. To be successful in their study, art and design students are required to operate with a high degree of independence and self-direction. Developing the skills for greater self-reliance requires students to…

It is generally accepted that art and design related disciplines attract a higher proportion of students with dyslexia than traditional academic counterparts. Combined with this is a prevalent perception that dyslexia predominantly affects students' writing and linguistic ability and it is this, as well as an increased visual-spatial sensibility,…

Curiosity is often considered the foundation of learning. There is, however, little understanding of how (or if) pedagogy in higher education affects student curiosity, especially in the studio setting of architecture, interior design and landscape architecture. This article provides a brief cultural history of curiosity and its role in the design…

This article presents an investigation that was funded by the Swedish Institute into the role of creative practice in architectural research as evidenced in Swedish doctoral theses. The sample was mapped and analysed in terms of clusters of interest, approaches, cultures of knowledge and uses of creative practice. This allowed the identification…

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) appear to be well fitted to the education of design professionals, such as architectural and engineering students, mainly because of the unique culture of these professional schools, where the emphasis is on creativity, collaboration, social relevance and rapid communication of ideas. Attention is…

Drawing from a larger study of doctorates in the visual and performing arts, we examine here the diversity of relations which can exist between the creative and written components of a doctoral thesis in these fields in terms of diversity of naming practices for these relations, institutional variation in guidelines and expectations, and…

Online learning has been recognised as an effective pedagogical method and tool, and is broadly integrated into various types of teaching and learning strategies in higher education. In practice, the use of Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in higher education has become an integral strategy for quality education. The field of design education,…

Murals are particularly visually captivating forms of public art due to their size and accessibility. Mural images also capture public attention and provoke viewers to explore layers of meaning and find hidden stories. They are often in places that people come to visit, study, play, congregate and discuss matters that may relate to the content of…

This article interprets the repercussions of visual storytelling for art education and arts-based narrative research and, particularly, it approaches visual storytelling as a critical tool for pre-service teacher education. After reinterpreting storytelling from the perspective of visual critical pedagogy, I will narratively reconstruct the use of…

This article draws on case studies undertaken in postgraduate research at AUT University, Auckland. It seeks to address a number of issues related to heuristic inquiries employed by graphic design students who use autobiographical approaches when developing research-based theses. For this type of thesis, heuristics as a system of inquiry may…

Recent educational policy and practice have established an extended role for all subjects in addressing children and young peoples' academic and interpersonal development, with strategies facilitating key skills and wider learning across areas of Citizenship and Personal, Social and Health education providing an integrated approach to education…

Design students are asked to regularly communicate their ideas to a diverse audience. Students' abilities may be affected by their perceived self-efficacy, the perception of abilities to perform a task. Because self-efficacy is conceived of as context-specific, it is vital to consider self-efficacy as it specifically relates to design studios and…

This article considers how primary teachers can learn from the practice of artists in their own teaching of art. Fundamental to artistic practice is the notion of practising with various materials and tools. In the article I look at some children's images, as well as scrutinising some statements made by the painter Francis Bacon. The practices of…

This article examines the political economic theories that informed the development of the first publicly funded art school in Britain, by the Select Committee on Arts and Manufactures of 1835/6. It begins by assessing these origins in the context of some recent experiments in art school pedagogy. It then responds to the challenge offered by…

The number of university undergraduate courses in the area of interactive media is increasing. Many of these courses are based in the schools of art and design that have traditionally valued and focused on developing the aesthetic and artistic design skills of their students. However, because of the rapid changes in new technology the relation…